He was afraid of the carriages; the patter of the passers-by on the pavements annoyed him; he, who had seen the most important ports of both hemispheres, complained of the bustle in the capital of a province.

Finally he would instinctively take the road from the harbor in search of the sea, his eternal friend, the first to salute him every morning upon opening the door of his own home down there on the _Marina_.
On these excursions he would oftentimes be accompanied by his little nephew.

The bustle on the docks,--( the creaking of the cranes, the dull rumble of the carts, the deafening cries of the freighters),--always had for him a certain music reminiscent of his youth when he was traveling as a doctor on a transatlantic steamer.
His eyes also received a caress from the past upon taking in the panorama of the port--steamers smoking, sailboats with their canvas spread out in the sunlight, bulwarks of orange crates, pyramids of onions, walls of sacks of rice and compact rows of wine casks paunch to paunch.

And coming to meet the outgoing cargo were long lines of unloaded goods being lined up as they arrived--hills of coal coming from England, sacks of cereal from the Black Sea, dried codfish from Newfoundland sounding like parchment skins as they thudded down on the dock, impregnating the atmosphere with their salty dust, and yellow lumber from Norway that still held a perfume of the pine woods.
Oranges and onions fallen from the crates were rotting in the sun, scattering their sweet and acrid juices.

The sparrows were hopping around the mountains of wheat, flitting timidly away when hearing approaching footsteps.